Fire of Skopje 1689

The fire of Skopje started on 26 October 1689 and lasted for two days, burning much of the city; only some stone-built structures, such as the fortress and some churches and mosques, were relatively undamaged. The fire had a disastrous effect on the city: its population declined from around 60,000 to around 10,000, and it lost its regional importance as a trading centre.

In 1689 the Austrian General Enea Silvio Piccolomini led an army to capture Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. During the offensive, the city of Skopje, present-day capital of the Republic of Macedonia, was plagued by epidemics of cholera. To prevent the outburst of the disease, or, by other accounts, to retaliate for the siege of Vienna, General Piccolomini ordered the city to be burned.

Some accounts of these events state that Piccolomini razed Skopje due to an inability of his forces to occupy and govern a city so far from his headquarters.

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